


Left Found

by Janekfan



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Caretaking, Crying, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs a Hug, Martin is best boy, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Sicfic, Sick Character, Tears, Touch-Starved, accidental compulsion, did I mention touch starved?, like SO touch starved, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28248915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janekfan/pseuds/Janekfan
Summary: Jon needs.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 71
Kudos: 230





	Left Found

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuuuuuuuugh this isn't what I wanted but I can't look at it anymore so yeet!

Hunger. 

Honed and piercing. 

So corrosive and corrupt and consuming it was a wonder it even fit inside him anymore. Or maybe it was because he didn’t _want_ it inside him anymore. Wanted to sweat it out like a fever, burn it out like mold and rot, tear it out of himself with his bitten-short fingernails until he couldn’t hear its constant demands. 

It wanted to burst from his throat and it was _everything_ on a _good_ day to keep it inside, away from the others, swallowed down, down, down like acid where it couldn’t bother anybody.

It was hard to know just how much something could hurt until you tried to hide it from the people who once knew you best. 

Tim was fixing his lunch in the breakroom. Jon _Knew_ that. 

Unbidden, the memories came, unstoppable and swift. The ache grew stronger with each one.

Soft, warm pats on the back, a mutual embrace after completing a difficult deadline. Tim was, _used_ to be, casual touch, easy and affectionate to a little brother replacing the one he’d lost fitting into the space left behind like it was Jon’s place to fit. Comfort and care and Tim could make this stop the ache the hurt the pounding buried in his scarred skin down to the bone. 

Tim could be an answer. A balm for the flickering, dying candle flame Jon still cultivated, protected from the rush of an entire ocean filling up his ears as he sank, awful deep, to a place where even sunlight didn’t dare reach its trembling fingers. 

Tim doesn’t want to see you. 

It was true, but Jon was desperate, needy, on the brink of screaming or tears or both and he needed _someone_ to please help him because surely he was falling apart at his strained and stretched seams, all his dirty, ugly stuffing on display for the Archives to See. 

“T’Tim.” Underwater and kilometers away his voice caused Tim to jump, spoon clattering into the sink as he cursed and turned and glared. 

“You look shite, _Boss_.” Jon thought of all the iterations of himself that had come before, that should have prepared him for this moment. He knew more than anything, anyone, how to want without letting anyone know. Knew how to be alone and make it seem as though it had always been his choice to be so. “Seriously, what do you want? If this is more of your paranoid, supernatural rubbish, Jon.” Angry, Tim stalked forward, Jon stepped unsteadily back. Surprised (scared) and still needing. 

“I, I, uh, what are you doing?” And instead of easy camaraderie, static rose in his throat, clashed against his teeth and forced its way between pursed lips at the same time red rage rose in Tim’s face as he strained against the compulsion and failed, words so fraught that even if Jon had been paying attention he wouldn’t have understood. Tim’s arms came up to frame Jon’s face as his palms collided heavily with the wall he crowded him against and he couldn’t hide his flinch. 

“What. The fuck!?” 

“I, I, I--”

“ _I, I_ ,” he mocked, “Not enough to _spy_? You need to force it out of me? The fuck!” And Jon flinched again, cowering in the shadow of Tim’s bulk, breath too fast and pulse hammering in his head. “ _Christ_ , Jon.” And he hung his head, jaw so tight his molars were grinding together and for a moment Jon was sure he was going to be struck, bracing for it. Instead he stumbled as Tim shoved him roughly away and that was wrong. Tim didn’t _do_ that and here Jon, stupid, stupid, stupid, had pushed him far enough. Another large hand smacked against his shoulder blade and he almost lost his footing, dizzied and sick and grateful when Tim didn’t follow him to his office. It was there he let himself go, let the tears come as he hid his stinging eyes in folded arms. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t...it just slipped out and he was _sorry_. 

He wouldn’t be believed. 

The burn of where Tim had pushed him was distracting and disquieting, stealing the stale air from his lungs and binding the too small cage of his ribs in knotted, tangled twine. 

Not for the first time, Jon longed for the relief that would accompany his giving in to the monster, gathering up all his multitudinous selves and rejoicing in the hideous nature that would be his and his alone. Leave his friends (not your friends any longer) and embrace this transformation with the finality of the damned. After all, despite inumerable attempts to right all his wrongs, they knew his living in the world brought an irreparable damage. Jon existed at too steep a cost and the debt was becoming so heavy it was crushing his bones to sand in its punishing fist. 

For now, he existed in the awful, liminal space between choices, an agony so deep seated and the sheer, impossible _need_ , pulled like taffy in too many directions. Was this the end of things? No more kind touch. No one to be careful with him when he felt already so fragile. 

Why did he have to make himself so hard to love? 

“ _Ah_!” His tailbone ached as he hit the ground sending sparks of sharp pain up his spine. “I’I’m sorry!” 

“Shut your mouth!” Jon raised his arm to shield his face, breath heaving in shuddering gasps. He hadn’t meant it, he hadn’t, he hadn’t. What was wrong with him? “You alright?” Basira looked shaken, eyes just this side of too wide as Daisy ran rough fingers over her cheek, examining her closely, brows furrowed. 

“Yeah.” She seemed dazed. He’d done that. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. Not to the people he loved. “Yeah, I’m alright.” Daisy nodded, that same unhinged look in her hard expression. 

“Bas--”

“I said. Shut. Your mouth.” And he swallowed another apology, lurching to his feet and fleeing before Daisy could hit him again. Clumsy, he rushed through narrow corridors, colliding at the corners in his attempt to put more distance between them until he finally began to flag. He’d made it into the stacks, surrounded by boxes of statements like beacons begging him to look inside. Find the real ones. Read them. Taste them. 

Consume. 

He deserved this. 

Jon didn’t know how long he sat there curled around his knees before Martin found him, but he was stiff and hurting, head pounding and stomach rolling from the heat buried in his skin, trying to claw its way out.

“Jon?” He must’ve looked up, because he was looking straight at Martin with the sudden realization that he had him boxed in between the shelves. “Hey,” calm, soft, talking down a wild animal but there were only the two of them here. “You don’t look well.” What was he talking about? 

“M’fine.” His tongue was thick in his mouth, words of treacle and like a tide, Martin drifted in and out, Jon’s head was too heavy for his own neck. 

“Jon?” Suddenly, a pale hand was reaching for him and he panicked. “Jon!” Shouting and loud and angry(?). 

“ _Go away_!” Static and bitterness flooded Jon’s throat, rushed to strangle him, and he coughed, sputtering, black coating his fingers as he tried to stop another accidental compulsion. He couldn’t bear to look up and witness the betrayal he knew he’d placed there and instead leaned forward to lose the ink threatening to choke him, watching it pool like an oil slick around his fingers. 

“Jon!” 

I’m sorry. 

“Jon?” 

I’m scared. 

“ _Leave me alone_!”

“Jon!” Fading, being carried away by struggling steps. “Jon!!” He clapped sticky hands over his ears until he was alone again. 

Martin is kind to you.

Because he fears you. 

Even if you let him help, he’ll leave you. Hurt you. You’ve ruined everything, you always do. You’re hurting them. You keep hurting them. 

He wrapped his arms so tightly around himself, until his fingers were dug into his flesh, sucking down a heaving lung full of air because he’d forgotten how to breathe with all his wanting. Cracking apart, letting things in that he kept trying desperately to keep out, out, out. 

Exhaustion caught him up despite how fast he ran from it, trapped him in a current he couldn’t control. Whirling eddies and rip tides left him gasping, sore all over from failing to hold on to something, anything to steady himself. Just get to the next second. One at a time. Unable to think of the full moment. 

And he looked up into a kind and familiar face creased in concern. 

Martin. 

“Hullo, Jon.” Soft, so soft. Kneeling beside him. “Shh, you’re alright. I’m not angry with you.” He kept quiet. The buzzing was there, the Eye was demanding he ask, tell, order. 

“Martin?” Shaky and small and closing his eyes against the touch of a palm against his forehead. 

“You’re burning up.” The clot of fear, ink and ash, stopped up his voice box and kept him silent, barely clinging to the shreds of whatever he had left. Jon wanted to take Martin’s soft attention and turn his focus elsewhere, at someone more deserving than he could ever be. “You need to rest. You’re not well.” 

Not well.

A cool flannel swept over his face leaving bliss in its wake before moving to envelop each finger, rid it of the tacky, drying blotches. Wary, he watched Martin’s deft hands fold the cloth to hide the mess, setting it aside. 

“I’m going to take you home. You shouldn’t be alone, not right now.” 

“M’m…” He wasn’t safe, he couldn’t control the Beholding. Even now it was feeding him information, rooting around in Martin’s head for things that didn’t belong to it. Luckily, Jon couldn’t hold on to any of it as he was, wearied and wasted. 

“You didn’t mean it. You aren’t thinking clearly, not with a fever like that.” The words washed over him, soothing and soft. Martin shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be kind to him like this when Jon would only take it and twist it into something terrible. But he was being lifted to his feet, the rest of the world following along a beat behind in his crowded vision, and Martin had to catch him when his knees buckled under him. “Alright, steady, I’ve got you.” With Martin doing the majority of the work, they waded through pools of emergency lighting between empty desks, everyone long gone home by now. He didn’t remember the cab ride, now standing cold and shivering at the bottom of the set of stairs leading up to Martin’s flat. Glancing up, overwhelmed and overwrought, the thought of climbing them drew a sob from his tight chest. 

Warmth at his elbow made him balk, eyes wide and searching when Martin held up his hands in a placating gesture, moving slowly and with calm, obvious intent. He was speaking. Jon could see his lips moving, but it didn’t make any sense and when the Eye reached blindly for it an icepick lodged itself firmly behind his ear. The next time Martin went to touch him, the effort he put in to avoid it ended with him twisting up his feet together and all he could do was watch the ground rise up to meet him. If he hit the floor he didn’t remember, prying apart heavy lids to take in unfamiliar walls. 

Not alone. 

Before he could panic, Martin crouched beside where he was laid out on a sofa, removing his shoes and smiling gently when he caught him staring. 

“It’s okay.” Calm. Quiet. “It’s okay.” Again. Infinitely softer. The backs of steady fingers brushing against his forehead and when Jon closed his eyes against his kindness, tears slipped down his cheeks. “It’s okay.” And he let himself believe it, the relief heady and stealing away the last of his resolve. “Let’s get you tucked up and warm, hm? Slow now, that’s good.” The babble was comforting, easy to drift along in the current, and he let Martin tell him what to do, accepting the water, the tablets, and drinking both down. Allowing Martin to manhandle him into soft clothes to replace his stained ones. “Lay back, try to sleep.” 

Martin’s bed. 

Before he himself knew he’d moved, the sleeve of Martin’s jumper was tight in his trembling grip. He could feel it, his expression twisting up, ugly and disgusting, lips pressed tightly together to keep his begging in, to trap the want. Trap it behind teeth and tongue until Martin realized what he’d done and kicked him out. 

Then he could let go again. Where no one could see how badly he needed. 

“It’s okay.” The soft pass through his sweat damp and tangled curls undid the rest of him. “What do you need?” A sob, a laugh, a burst of static that made both of them wince. Desperate. And his crying stopped all else. A stillness descending so thick and deep it felt like drowning, throat blocked up with ink and sorrow and impossible agony. 

Arms wrapped around him. Tight, hot bands of iron and despite the strength with which he was held it became easier to breathe and he gulped down air sweeter than anything he’d known in a long time. 

It was dark. Darker than it had been before and he was something far beyond tired. Wrung out and stretched thin, unspooled like fine wire. Gradually, sensation trickled in. The scent of tea from the breakroom. Wash worn wool. Gentle hands. He was moving, just slightly. Swaying. 

Small sounds he couldn’t parse fell like rain, soft and warm. 

Laid carefully down, like he was a precious, breakable thing. Wrapped up, legs and limbs and warm, warm, warm. Greedy, selfish, he drank it in, clinging to Martin in the velvet dark, hand to hand, skin to skin, and it still wasn’t enough. How could it be when he’d gone so long without. When he’d never known anything else. 

Hunger. Always there.

Even before he’d been cursed with this awful _gift_.

Gnawing and persistent but quieting in the wake of the grounding beat of Martin’s heart, everywhere and all around. In his own pulse, his blood, his body. His touch was fire to his frostbite; painful and so very good. 

He wanted it. Wanted so badly to be warm again. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jon buried his nose in Martin’s throat, shuddering under his hands. “Rest, Jon.”

Apricot light seeped between his lashes, lifting him up and out of sleep. His cheek was pillowed on Martin’s chest, the man’s fingers still buried in his hair.

It was gentle here. The static muted and buried under the quilts, no longer lurking, waiting for its chance to take. 

“Fever’s down some.” But all the same he pressed him with more medicine before excusing himself to put the kettle on. Jon curled up in the warmth he left behind, clear headed and wondering, waking when Martin came back with tea and toast. “You should eat a little something.” Wordlessly, Jon opened his mouth. Closed it, worried that all he had left inside was the ability to compel, to steal. Martin busied himself with the meticulous application of jam on his toast and Jon appreciated the space. The patience he didn’t really deserve. 

“Th’thank you. Martin.” 

“How long have you been ill?” Jon shrugged one shoulder, forgoing his own toast and sipping on the tea instead. 

“Thought.” What had he thought? He only remembered _wanting_. “I. I don’t know. It’s all…” he tried to gesture in a way that explained how twisted things had been with the fever and the hunger and the fog. It was lacking. “I’m sorry for--I, I didn’t m’mean to. I.” 

Couldn’t control it. 

Jon thought he could taste the ink threatening to make a reappearance and took another swallow. He felt somewhat better, still sick. Still worried. 

“I’m not angry with you.” Jon stared into his tea. “Hey, look at me.” Martin lifted his chin with a touch. “I see you. I _see_ you trying.” Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over only for Martin to brush them away. Jon set the cup aside and let himself fall into the broad chest, melt beneath the heavy hand cradling his head. 

Safe.

Sated.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've a fave line or enjoyed it, I'd love to know. Serotonin is low, frens.


End file.
